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Hare coursing pair and legislation found guilty
BRITAIN'S ban on hare coursing was upheld yesterday when former championship racehorse trainer Peter Easterby and huntsman Major John Shaw were convicted of hosting events on their land.
But the judgment in the landmark case at Scarborough Magistrates Court was accompanied with harsh words on the Hunting Act, which the Countryside Alliance greeted as the "rudest" rebuke yet to the legislation.
Both men were given absolute discharges by District Judge Christine Harrison who expressed concern over the two years the case had been hanging over them and that two men of previous good character should find themselves in such a situation.
She said there was no doubt everyone in the case had extreme difficulty in understanding exactly what Parliament meant by the legislation.
"Here we have two gentlemen, who have never been in trouble before, who it seems to me took every step to make sure what they were doing was lawful. Yet they have found themselves in this position." She was also "extremely concerned" that a police officer had attended on the morning of the event on Shaw's land and let it continue.
Had more senior officers been involved at that stage, and a halt had been called to the event, she did not think Shaw would have found himself in such a difficult position.
The judge underlined that for that reason she would be making no order against the defendants for any of the prosecution costs of the case, which has been dragging on March 2007. It began when anti-hunt campaigners used a secret camera disguised as a pair of field glasses to film hare coursing events on land owned by Easterby and Shaw over two consecutive days by the Yorkshire Greyhound Field Training Club.
The judge stressed that while she had found the events were hare coursing, as defined by the legislation, it was important to remember the two greyhounds chasing the hares had been muzzled. Sinnington Hunt member Shaw, 55, of Welburn Manor, Welburn, near Kirkbymoorside, and Easterby, 79, charged under his birth name of Miles Henry Easterby, of Habton Grange Farm, Great Habton, denied permitting land to be used for hare coursing and attending hare coursing but were convicted after a two-day trial.
The defence relied on a 1969 ruling by the House of Lords that guilty intent was important as criminal acts in establishing guilt in all ordinary cases. Because the success of such a defence would have seriously undermined the ability of the police to enforce the legislation the convictions were greeted with relief by animal welfare workers.
RSPCA Chief Inspector Geoff Edmond said: "We're pleased to have been able to assist North Yorkshire Police and the International Fund for Animal Welfare in bringing this prosecution." The IFAW said in a statement: "We are delighted at the guilty verdict." Leaving court, Easterby said: "We predicted this. To be honest, it has not bothered me one iota though. I did not think about it at all, except when people kept reminding me about it."
Shaw said: "I'm quite relieved. It's been two and a half years."
Countryside Alliance spokes-man Tim Bonner said: "It is not the first time we have had people trying to act in a legal way dragged through the courts for years for no reason whatsoever. The act needs to be repealed."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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